Page 109 of Rule the Night

Then there had been the bills for the lawyer who helped me fight to get guardianship of Cassie, and I’d moved us into a dingy apartment over Syd’s while I came up with a way to give her the life she deserved.

Working the streets — and then running them — hadn’t been plan A. It hadn’t even been plan B.

Plan fucking C for the win.

I’d poured everything I had into giving Cassie a good life, first by purchasing the building that housed Syd’s so we didn’t have to pay rent there, then by purchasing other properties in Blackwell Falls.

Then I’d turned my attention to laying down the law, sending messages to the MCs and street gangs that they could cut me in on their enterprises — and have access to the bigger deals Remy and Poe helped me put together — or they could rest in peace on the mountain.

I’d given Cassie the building on the north side as a high-school graduation present, along with a check big enough to cover the startup costs of the coffee shop she’d dreamed of owning.

By then, running Blackwell had been a full-time job. Cassie was safe and happy, with enough money invested in offshore accounts to take care of her eventual grandchildren if anything ever happened to me. Everyone who was anyone knew that Cassie was unofficial royalty in Blackwell Falls, an insurance policy that offered her as much protection as there could be in the world.

There hadn’t been anything else to want, and that had meant there was nothing that could be taken from me.

I’d eaten and fucked and even laughed, but that had just been fun. I wouldn’t have batted an eye if any of it had been taken away.

It was all just a way to pass the time.

And then Maeve Haver had tried to bring that fucking gun into the Hunt.

I’d tried to ignore her. Had tried to pretend my heartbeat didn’t tick up a notch when she walked into a room. Had tried not to see her face when I beat off in my room, in the shower.

But it hadn’t worked. She was everywhere in my life: laughing with the friends who were like brothers, filling the kitchen with the smell of sugar and spice, spreading her legs for Remy and Poe until I wanted to kill them both for taking possession of her first.

And today she’d been at Cassie’s, looking at me with a smile that said she thought we were friends.

I’d felt exposed, like how much I wanted her was written all over my face, like it was coded into the beat of my fucking heart and every person within a mile — including my little sister — could hear it.

It was no good.

Not for Maeve and not for me. I wasn’t built to love. Not anymore.

I was built for destruction.

It was that way by design. Of all the dangerous things in my life, wanting things was the most dangerous of all, and I’d never wanted anything — anyone — as much as I wanted her.

But I’d been here before, wanting things I couldn’t have: safety, security, my parents alive again. I’d learned not to want those things, had learned to accept the things that were available to me: money, control, power.

It had to be enough. The alternative meant ruin.

I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there, but the sun had dropped behind the mountain. The air was laced with a chill that would turn cold in a few more weeks. There would be snow, the world silent and muffled.

Peaceful.

Maeve would be gone by then. Less than a month. That was how long she had left with us.

I could resist her that long.

70

MAEVE

An hourafter I left the coffee shop, I pulled open the fridge in the loft, took out the milk and eggs, and slammed them down on the counter.

“If you’re not careful you’re going to break those before you get them in the pan,” Remy said. “Ask me how I know.”

His self-deprecating humor normally would have made me laugh, but right now nothing was funny, and I removed a saucepan from the cupboard and slammed it with a clatter onto the stove.